Harry Manx: Canadian Mohan Veena master on the blues, the Indian tradition, and the gift of music

Standing in Chicago airport and feeling like you've been punched in the guts isn't a good feeling.

But that's the way musician Harry Manx says he felt when he realised his beloved Mohan Veena had been stolen from the baggage carousel.

"I was heartbroken, I had tears in my eyes, it was like I'd lost a friend," he says in a wood-smoked Canadian accent that can't hide the distress he felt at the time.

"I was so affected that the police officer took me and said 'sit down and relax'. I left the airport feeling ..." and he pauses, thinking. "Helpless."

Part of his distress was the knowledge that in just a few hours he would be sitting in front of an audience, without the Mohan Veena.

It is a strange-looking instrument that combines the qualities of the sitar and slide guitar, and for Harry Manx it is very much the reason people come to see him.

How did he deal with losing it? Well, and there is at this point a silence.

"I managed the situation by recalling the old saying, come as you are."

He also says he had to have a hard word with himself about the promise he makes to an audience that he is there to inspire, with whatever guitar he has at hand.

"I had to play from the depths and I played deep that night."

Whether it was the energy of the performance or simply justice at work, while he was on stage something magical was happening in social media-land. The news of the Mohan Veena's theft had spread on Twitter and Facebook. First 10,000, then 50,000, then finally millions of people were on the look-out for the distinctive instrument.

It's a testimony to the way people feel about Manx and his music, which has been described as Mysticsippi - a wonderful melding of the Mississippi delta blues and Indian ragas.

The story of how Harry Manx first heard the sound of the Mohan Veena has been told before, but his decision to uproot himself from a life of touring and head for India, to place himself under the demanding eye and ear of master musician Vishwa Mohan Batt for nearly five years, takes some explaining.

"When I play music I want to inspire people, to uplift. I want people to turn inwards and have a journey," he says.

The ability to do that is what kept Manx working at the Mohan Veena even when he thought he'd never master it. How does he know if the music is working?

"Well, I don't look at the audience. I'm busy playing. But when I finish I can feel it, and I know if I've done my job."

Even so, that still doesn't explain entirely why he decided to mix the music of the delta with India. As he tells it, he began his journey by watching blues players Buddy Guy and Junior Wells at a matinee concert.

"I was taken by the clothes, the attitude they had. I liked the shtick. I wanted some of that. I got a job in a blues club."

What is a Mohan Veena?

Invented by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt in India

Hybrid of guitar and sitar

Has 20 strings and tuning heads right down the neck

Played with the metal bar in the lap of the player

Over time, something else was at work. His father had travelled extensively and brought him objects from India. That encouraged Manx to travel, and then he began to realise that Indian music had the mesmeric quality of the blues but offered something more.

"Indian music is very old and they have long ago figured out the effect of certain groups of notes on people," he says.

"Some have sadness, some have contemplation. Ragas have stages, each stage takes the listener through different feelings. The more you know, the more fascinating it becomes."

It occurs to me that he might be describing at least some elements of blues music that have impacted so heavily on musicians from Robert Johnson to Eric Clapton. Manx though is cautious.

Western music he says goes outwards, Indian music is a journey within.

So what does he think of modern pop music? I wince in anticipation but Manx is generous in his praise. "The music is good, there are a lot of talented people. They have soul and they play great music".

Balanced against this he says is, "the push by record companies to offer stuff without depth". And to make it even harder Manx says there is now so much music that getting a unique sound is tough.

"I'm lucky", he says.

"There are not a lot of people mixing Indian ragas and blues," you can hear a faint chuckle as he says it. He pauses and reflects.

"On shows like The Voice I wouldn't last a second."

The qualities that make him an unlikely finalist on The Voice, though, are precisely the qualities that entice audiences to come and listen. Over the coming month in small venues across Australia people will gather for some Manx magic.

"I like playing music that shoots at the heart," he says.

Our discussion comes back to the lost Mohan Veena. In the days that followed its theft, people across Canada and beyond, continued to look for it in pawn shops, internet sites, anywhere it might be sold. Others generously contacted Manx, offering to make him a new one.

He was overwhelmed. But then something funny happened. He says he began to think.

"With all this reaction I realised it was just a hunk of wood after all."

He also found he could make sounds like the Mohan Veena on his guitar.

At that point he says he realised, without downplaying the qualities of the beautiful instrument he had lost, "the gift he had was not the instrument, but the ability to play."

As if on cue, and in part due to the online campaign, police caught the man who had stolen the Mohan Veena.

"He had a history in crime," Manx says. "He was about my age. It was sad ... he got time because he'd been out on probation. At his age you need a better life." Manx is almost baffled and saddened by the situation.

"There were a lot of lessons to this story. People came to me with a personal outpouring, telling me stories of loss. I came to realise life is a constant jarring, forcing you to learn lessons. That was my test. It never overcame me. But there was hurt."

As our conversation draws to a close it occurs to me that Manx has summed up the blues pretty well, whether the music they generate comes from the Ganges or the Mississippi, the process is the same; pain, and, if you work at it, perhaps, enlightenment.